


At the end of the world

by Mariquita



Category: Mr. Robot (TV)
Genre: Angst, Domestic Fluff, M/M, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-18
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-01-19 00:49:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12399684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mariquita/pseuds/Mariquita
Summary: After stage 2, Tyrell & Elliot are living incognito in a one-bedroom apartment away from everything they know and love.





	1. Chapter 1

It isn’t exactly a phone booth like what it says on the instructions but a family-owned drugstore—one of those Chinese ones that have stood the test of time. Tyrell finds it tucked in between two apartment buildings with most of the units already foreclosed. It’s a quiet street, not a lot of foot traffic. He pulls his cap down over his face nevertheless because he can never really be too careful.

The phone in question is actually a residential line that the owners have opened for public use. “Phone call: 7 B/min,” says a sign with the 7 written in crude lettering above a crossed out 2.

Tyrell ducks inside the metal awning. It’s not even summer yet but he’s already soaked through his cotton shirt. He can feel a headache inching its way to his frontal lobe.

The old woman fanning herself behind the counter is preoccupied with a rerun of a TV show and hardly gives him a glance. Tyrell checks his watch: 2 o’clock.

And right on the dot, the phone rings.

“What have you got?” he says, without any form of greeting.

After a stunned pause, a voice answers at the other end of the line. “This is just… a courtesy call if you will.”

Tyrell sighs into the receiver, feeling like he’s already wasted his time.

“Listen, things are still complicated. You just have to keep still for a bit longer,” the voice explains.

“How long?”

“A few more months, maybe.”

“How long?” He repeats, or growls rather, and he almost doesn’t recognize his own voice.

This time the person at the other end of the line doesn’t answer. The television cuts to a public service announcement. Thai and its translations in Chinese and English text over a startling red background. They’re cutting down the rice rations to two kilos a week per household. The old lady watches on, unflinching. This doesn’t seem to bother her.

“Look, you should know we haven’t forgotten about you,” the voice sounds softer this time, almost apologetic.

“Yeah,” Tyrell says blankly.

There is a pause. “How is he?”

“Fine.” Tyrell’s voice is clipped. He doesn’t want this phone call any longer.

“Great, then! Keep up the good work,” the voice says, and then, like an afterthought, “Change is coming. You may not feel it, but it is.”

Tyrell gets the same line every time he gets a call. No variation, whatsoever. It’s hard not to imagine that they have it written down in black marker and tacked to a corkboard above their telephone. _Change is coming._ Maybe there was a time Tyrell believed in that, too. But the thought doesn't comfort him now and he doesn’t answer.

“Hang in there,” the voice says with finality.

Tyrell nods in response, not caring that the other person can’t see him, and the call ends. He puts down the receiver and pushes back the urge to weep. He doesn’t want to acknowledge that feeling that maybe they’re going to rot in this town.

He’s about to walk back into the heat of the street when the old lady behind the counter calls his attention.

“Don’t forget!” she shouts, brandishing something the size of a small purse in her hand.

It’s a package with no return address. Tyrell rips it open and there’s a few hundred dollars and a book inside. He slips the hundreds in his shirt pocket, briefly wondering if they’re of any value these days anymore.

The book looks like a kid’s book; well-thumbed, pages brown and brittle, and possibly at least three decades old. He turns it over in his hands and flips through it until he comes across a note paper tucked in between the pages.

“Dear E,” the note starts in rounded script. “Look at what I found! They’re closing down the library. It’s sad, I know. I’m just glad I was able to save this one. I hope it reaches you wherever you are.”

It ends with a name that’s not her name—“Claudia K.”

\---

The headache is already in full bloom when he steps inside the apartment and he is startled for a brief moment by his reflection in the mirror. Hat hair dyed black, limp and too long for his taste; a frantic look in his eyes. He looks like someone he would despise back when he was still an executive at E-Corp.

He takes a plastic jug from the fridge and begins downing half the water in it. The heat. It’s enough to make him wish for snowstorms back in Sweden, the kind that will bury your house overnight.

From his vantage point, he can see Elliot still sleeping on the couch. He’s curled up on his side, facing the backrest. The shirt he’s wearing had ridden up around his torso somehow, exposing his lower back.

Tyrell walks over to the where he is, socked feet silent on the wooden floor. The couch is just big enough to accommodate Elliot without having to wake up with a crick in the neck.

The apartment is a one-bedroom up on the third floor in an elevator-less building. They found it cheap and quite safe, tucked away in the midst of other apartment complexes. Elliot offered to take the couch before Tyrell could put a word in. It’s only temporary, he’d said and now he’s been living off his duffel bag for almost a year.

Tyrell crouches beside Elliot. This close, he can count the vertebrae on his spine. The night shifts are taking a toll on his body.

Elliot insists on working at a bar down at soi 3, which isn’t a long walk from their apartment. Tyrell told him it wasn’t a good idea as the bar is a front for some other shady business the owners have at the back. They’re probably connected to a Russian mob. They’re most possibly killers. But Tyrell knows Elliot had already surveyed it, and it’s probably the only reason why he chose to work there in the first place.

To appease him, Elliot bought a switchblade from the night market as if it will make a difference. Tyrell saw him use it a total of two times: to peel an apple and to open a stuck window.

He’d ask him to quit, but the truth is they need the extra income.

He places the book down on the low table so that it’s the first thing Elliot will see when he wakes up.

Tyrell understands that Elliot dreams of going back to Angela. But they don’t talk about it. Sometimes, he sees him leafing through a sizeable bundle of letters, all from her. He just flips through them like a deck of cards, never really perusing any one letter. Tyrell thinks he just likes the feel of them, solid against his fingers, like they’re Elliot’s only line to a life that they both know they might never get back.

As for Tyrell, he has no one to return to.

He reaches out to pull down Elliot’s shirt and his hand hovers for just a moment over the small of his back. He counts the steady rise and fall of his shoulders and Tyrell recognizes what he already knows in his veins: that there is nothing he will not do for this man.


	2. Chapter 2

More than a year ago Tyrell couldn’t even look at kids without bursting into tears. So he was about ready to throw himself off a bridge when he got the job teaching English to kids through the Dark Army Connection. He tells himself everyday that his son is with a good family somewhere. That they’re taking care of him more than he possibly can. And it makes his job easier, somehow.

Benjamin is 7 years old and wheezes when he talks, a congenital disorder. Something to do with his heart so fragile he’s not even allowed to run. Somehow, he’d managed to crawl his way into Tyrell’s heart and it was already too late for Tyrell to do anything about it.

Today, Tyrell’s brought him a pack of Swedish Fish acquired by scouring all the candy stores within a 10 kilometer radius of their apartment.

“Why is it red?” Benjamin asks in staccato English. They’ve just finished their lesson for the day.

“I think they’re flavored after lingonberries. They’re like blueberries, but only they’re red, and that they grow in very cold countries,” Tyrell pops a jelly candy in his mouth and he realizes he can’t actually remember the taste of lingonberries.

“It’s cold? Where you’re from?” Benjamin asks through a mouth full of candy.

“Don’t speak with your mouth full,” Tyrell says before he can stop himself. “It is. It’s cold. It’s like living in a freezer.”

Benjamin pulls a face like he doesn’t know if this is a good or a bad thing.

“If it’s a berry, then why is it a fish?” Benjamin asks, rolling a candy between his thumb and index finger. Tyrell pauses, smirks. He wonders if his son will grow up to be a smart ass.

“You know what, I don’t really know.”

“Are you going back soon, to your cold home?” Benjamin is pulling a fish apart. Head first, and then tail.

“Not anytime soon,” Tyrell says, not sure where home exactly is right now.

They both hear the metal gates being thrown open and Benjamin rushes to the front door yelling “Mama, mama!” as if his mother’s been away for a year. Tyrell can’t help but feel a bit jealous. He starts gathering the paper strewn across the desk into his briefcase, Benjamin’s little assignments where he misspells half the words. _Good Moarnin. Haw are yuo to-day?_

“Tyrell,” somebody calls from behind him. It’s Lia, Benjamin’s mother, white as paper and stick thin, but she has a presence so commanding that even Tyrell withers when she is around. More than anything, she reminds him of Joanna.

Benjamin is following Lia like a puppy. She crouches and whispers something in Mandarin and the boy looks at Tyrell once and then quickly bounces off to the kitchen.

“You’re very good with kids,” she says, conversationally, once Benjamin is out of earshot.

“I’m not so special,” Tyrell answers.

“Do you have kids of your own?”

His son will be two years old now and is probably already capable of speaking short words.

“No,” he answers.

There’s a pause and Lia nods as if it's truly an earth-shattering revelation.

“I mean, I’m the eldest in my family and I guess I’m used to taking care of my younger siblings,” he automatically lies through his teeth. But then he catches the look on Lia’s face. Years of climbing up the corporate ladder has given Tyrell an almost preternatural skill at reading micro-expressions. And something is blistering there just beneath Lia’s usual severe appearance, threatening to rise to the surface.

It’s fear.

“Lia…” he starts, not really knowing what to say next.

She starts rummaging her bag, breaking eye contact.

“Tyrell,” she says, her usual lilting voice low and cracking. Tyrell observes as her composure unravels. Her hands shake as she pulls out her purse.

Something is very wrong.

She steps forward, invading Tyrell’s space and draws out his hand, presses something in his palms.

“We have to leave,” she says, shakily, her every breath becoming shallow, eyes watering. “Tonight. Me and Benjamin. We have to leave…”

Tyrell watches in shock as tears start falling down her face. Her nails are sharp against the inside of his palms.

She closes her eyes and takes several deep breaths. When she opens her eyes again, it’s as if nothing has happened. She’s fully composed, business-like again except her cheeks are still damp.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” Tyrell asks, his hand moving to cover hers.

“I should start packing. Just enough to last us a month,” she says, and she withdraws her hands from his grip.

There are folded bahts in Tyrell’s palms and he knows its more than three months’ worth of fees. He tries to say something but Lia is already turning her back to him.

“It’s better if you don’t say goodbye to Benjamin,” she says quietly. “His heart. It’s too small for these type of things.”

“If you’re in trouble…” Tyrell trails off. They are, he knows.

“Thank you for your service, Tyrell. He’s grown very fond of you.” Lia falls silent after that, her gaze falling to the garden outside. It has started to rain.

“It always rains at 4 o’clock,” Lia says quietly, as if to herself.

Tyrell knows not to press any more and so he piles some more workbooks into his bag. He pauses when he sees Benjamin’s crude drawing of him: thin like a scarecrow, arms akimbo, black hair pointed in all the directions. There are little red fishes flying over his head and his misspelled name in blue crayon: _Tairel_. He picks it up and folds it to fit his wallet.

 

\---

 

He comes home to an empty apartment and it takes all his strength to not scream at the walls. He still gets them, those impulses to break things, a fine vase for example, or a bottle of vodka, or an elegant neck perhaps on the rooftop of some building.

He tries his hardest not to think of Lia and Benjamin disappearing into the night, the Dark Army’s masked men on their tail. He knows he won’t be able to save them, just like he wasn’t able to save Joanna. He buries his eyes in his palms but all he can imagine are those little red Swedish Fish melting to form a pool of blood around Benjamin’s head.

He kicks off his shoes and makes his way to the couch where Elliot sleeps. Elliot’s scent is everywhere. It shouldn’t comfort him but it does, as if it’s the only anchor in his world that is spinning so uncontrollably.

 

\---

 

It’s still dark when Tyrell wakes up with a start, face pressed against Elliot’s pillow. He was chasing a dream, or a nightmare. It’s hard to tell.

He fell asleep without changing and now his slacks and dress shirt are crumpled. He can smell coffee. He sits up when he hears movement in the kitchen, his throat feeling sore, like he’s been screaming.

He’s surprised to find Elliot already seated by the kitchen counter, leafing through this morning’s newspaper.

Elliot looks up briefly. “There’s coffee.”

Tyrell wobbles to the table and sits opposite Elliot. The weather is forgivable in these small hours, just before the sun rises completely and the city comes back to life. It’s peaceful, like all is right in the world.

Tyrell notices that Elliot looks tired, the dark circles under his eyes more evident.

“Did you sleep at all?” he asks.

Elliot stops reading.

“Well, I couldn’t even if I wanted to,” he says and gestures to the couch.

Tyrell mentally hits himself.

“You could’ve slept in the room,” he says, though he knows he should probably just apologize.

“It doesn’t matter,” Elliot says, fingers tapping on the formica. “Figured I’d buy breakfast instead.”

True enough, the microwave dings. Elliot fishes out the containers and takes them to the counter. It's convenience-store food, which is what they’ve been eating for days. Tyrell must’ve made a face because Elliot smiles and its rare enough that it takes Tyrell by surprise.

“We should go to the market, get some stuff,” Elliot begins, picking at his rice and omelet. “Some guys at work taught me how to make curry. It’s pretty easy. They have instant everything now.”

“Yeah… yeah, we should,” Tyrell says, wolfing down a spoonful, and wondering if Elliot has always been this chatty in the morning.

He notices the book from yesterday perched on top of their apartment bills.

“Got that yesterday,” he says.

Elliot grins as if remembering something.

“It’s a story about a kid who runs away,” he says. He picks it up and turns it in his hands.

“Me and Angela thought of doing the same thing. But we never did. Near impossible when you’re 8 years old.”

Tyrell nods, trying to push down a tinge of jealousy that's trying to crawl up his brain. At least, after all of this, if it ends at all, Elliot still has her.

He checks the wall clock and then picks at the omelet, realizing quickly that it tastes like sand. Elliot looks like he's about to say something else but keeps it to himself instead. 

"I think this is the first time we've eaten breakfast together," Tyrell says and it's true. He wonders why this observation is important to say out loud, but Elliot nods in response nonetheless.

"Yeah, our schedules just don't allow it."

"It's nice," Tyrell comments even though breakfast basically tastes like shit. 

They fall silent after that until Elliot stands up without warning to dump his breakfast, container and all, in the trash bin.

“I can’t finish that. It’s disgusting,” he says, wiping his hands on his jeans.

Tyrell grins. He’s not a picky eater but this is ridiculous. He covers the container and slides it in the refrigerator where they’ll forget about it until it starts forming molds. He wonders when exactly did he start feeling guilty about wasting food or when he stopped caring about the frayed edges of his slacks and the stretched out collars of his shirts.

Elliot has already made his way to the couch and is patting it down.

“Wake me up for groceries later,” he says before pulling the blanket over himself.

Tyrell fills a cup with coffee and reads the front headlines. Still the same news from all over the world: massive rallies, food shortage, countries in martial law, countries at war. He turns the pages, and scours the smaller headlines for news about a Chinese woman and her son. Nothing. And he hopes it’s a good sign. He hopes to god they made it wherever they were going.

“Hey, Tyrell,” Elliot’s voice sounds so far away, and heavy as if on the verge of sleep. Tyrell can see that he’s facing the backrest, curled up already as if it’s so, so cold.

“I wasn’t able to say this before... but I'm sorry about Joanna.” 

In a flash, Tyrell recalls his dream: long brown hair, green eyes, spring in the background.


	3. Chapter 3

They all look the same, these _sois_ branching out from the main Sukhumvit road. Some are busier, some less so; others look haunted in their emptiness. Tyrell finds himself in one of the more empty streets. It looks familiar enough, but not quite, and after walking almost halfway through the stretch of road, he realizes that he is remarkably lost.

He sighs and rakes a hand through his scalp which is damp with sweat. It’s only 9 A.M. and yet the sun, in this part of the world, is already so intense.

Randomly, he slips into a small alleyway. The buildings flanking each side of the path create a sort of funnel and it’s windy and shady, and for a moment, he doesn’t want to leave.

At the end of the alleyway is of course another street. This one is as empty as the one he’d been in, but it feels more familiar. He decides, also randomly, to turn right and true enough, he finds the store. The metal shutters are only part-way up.

He ducks inside with a vacillating “hello.” It’s dark and smells like patchouli.

There’s movement in the corner of the store and the old lady from before emerges from behind a shelf full of boxes. She has in her hands several cans of mushroom soup.

“Ah! It’s you!” she says and she says it as if she’s been waiting for him all morning.

“Help me line those shelves with these,” she asks, or commands more like.

Tyrell does most of the work, though, sweating all throughout. The single fan at the farthest corner of the shop does little to none to banish the heat and humidity.

“They’re cleaning house,” says the lady now sitting on a low stool. She is arranging packets of instant noodles in the glass display box.

“Cleaning house?” Tyrell asks vapidly, reaching for yet another can.

“Shh! Keep your voice down.”

Tyrell peers outside. The street is empty.

“Loose ends, you know—” she continues in a hushed tone. Tyrell pauses. Were Lia and Benjamin loose ends? Is he a loose end? Is Elliot?

“Best if you keep your head low, for now.” The lady stands up and stretches, her back arching at an impossible stretch for her age. Tyrell finishes lining the shelf. He wipes his hands on his trousers.

“He says—that man you were talking to the other day—he says you should focus on the job. Lia and Benjamin? He knows they mean a lot to you. But they are of little consequence.” She picks up a cardboard box, folds it and uses it as a fan. She sighs into the oppressing heat.

“You and I? We’re the same,” she says.

“In what way?” Tyrell asks.

“I’m just doing my job,” she answers with a small, almost imperceptible hint of desolation.

Tyrell realizes that she too might be trapped, coerced by the Dark Army to play her part as messenger.

“He says you’ll be fine,” she continues. “Your kid in some foster family will be fine…” Then, she looks straight at him, eyes intense and heavy, almost pleading. “Just as long as you do your job.”

Tyrell makes his way out into the street. In the sweltering heat, he feels a cold sweat sprawl across his neck.

\---

Tyrell steps outside the shower, still damp, with nothing but a towel hastily wrapped over his lower half. You can never have enough showers in this heat. The door to his room is shut and locked. He seldom does this, being the only bathroom in the apartment is inside the room.

Tyrell pulls out the dossier— _The Job._ It’s about an inch thick and it sits under Tyrell’s mattress and always weighs heavily in the back of his mind.

The cover page is a mug shot of Elliot, taken when he was first arrested for demolishing several servers at his former job. Under Tyrell’s lamp light and in this angle, there’s something vicious and untamed in Elliot’s eyes. He’d seen that look once or twice in those days preceding Stage 2, but never again after that.

Medical reports form his childhood: a broken arm from a fall where the doctor’s note states that it may not have been accidental. There’s a 15-page psych assessment report by one named K. Gordon where she describes Elliot as “… having persecutory delusions, auditory hallucinations and a disturbed sense of self all of which point to a schizophrenic disorder.” Then there’s the HR’s endorsement from Allsafe attached to Elliot’s resume. Intelligent, hard-working and also withdrawn, it says. Just the right character for a cyber-security engineer.

Tyrell remembers the room. The walls painted lamp black, carpet bright red. A fish tank with a koi. In the middle of the room a desk. And on that desk, Elliot’s dossier.

It had taken him a while to finish reading the file and by then the tank had already ran out of water. He watched as the fish gave a last spasm before death. That was when Whiterose entered, a whiff of smoke billowing after her.

“I’m disappointed,” she had said, cigarette burning between her fingers. “I was half expecting you to try and save that fish, or kill it ahead of time.”

Tyrell had blinked at her, confusion written all over his face.

“I was told you were devoted to that man,” she had said, simply. She eyed the dead fish with a kind of stoicism Tyrell saw so many times in the faces of his colleagues as they passed each other in the corridors of E-Corp.

“So we’re giving you a job,” she had said, pointing to the dossier on the table.

Tyrell licked his lips because they were dry and they hadn’t offered him a drink. He had been sitting in that room for hours, news of his wife’s death still fresh in his mind.

“What do I do with this?” Tyrell had asked quietly with a kind of acquiescence he wasn’t accustomed to.

Whiterose sighed as if it was so obvious and she answered slowly and ever so sonorously “You take care of _it_.”

She stubbed her cigarette into a waiting ashtray and took out a new one from a pack.

“You keep him in place. Keep him hidden. We don’t care how. Lie to him. Keep him busy. Fuck him if you want to. Make him fall in love with you.”

She was flicking a lighter then.

“Easy-peasy for a man like you,” she had grinned and that was that.

\---

The reality is that it’s not easy. A year living with Elliot has taught him that.

Tyrell sits on an armchair parallel to the couch where Elliot is still asleep. He’s already dressed down for market: casual shirt, chinos, espadrilles. He realizes this outfit is cooler that’s why most of the expats he sees milling about in the cafes nearby are all dressed like this.

It’s almost 3 o’clock and he kneels beside Elliot to wake him up.

“Market,” whispers Tyrell and it comes out sounding more intimate than is necessary. Suddenly he’s too aware of how close their faces are. Elliot blinks up at him, eyes bleary. Tyrell can see that he's still just waking up, possibly perplexed at why Tyrell is so near all of a sudden. There’s a thin sheen of sweat on Elliot’s brow and on his neck. Tyrell can do nothing but swallow a lump in his throat that he doesn’t even know is there before standing up and walking away.

\---

It’s mid-afternoon when they take the train to the last station. They pile out and follow the crowd to the market. Elliot walks fast. Faster than him. He keeps his eyes on the back of his head as he weaves through the crowd, never once bumping into anyone.

Once through the gates, the crowd disperses, some going straight for the clothes section, others to the souvenirs.

They’re drawn right away to the smell of food. It’s like an assault to their senses, spicy and savory and everything else in between. Tyrell’s mouth begins to water and he realizes that apart from the few bites he had this morning, he hasn't eaten all day. He lets Elliot pick a stall and they order using gestures and embarrass themselves with broken Thai. They sit down on a foldable table that looks older than the market itself.

“What do you plan to get here?” Tyrell asks in between sips of Sprite.

“A few shirts, maybe. Something to sleep in. Then maybe some spices,” Elliot answers. He looks different in daylight and Tyrell can’t remember when was the last time they went out like this, sunlight warm on their skin.

Their food arrives, grilled chicken, fish curry and some vegetables on the side. It’s greasy, seasoned to the bone with MSG, but it’s far better than any convenience-store food. They eat in comfortable silence, too hungry now to even care for a conversation.

They pay for their meal and amble along the main walkway towards where they sell clothes. They duck inside an alleyway to the inner stalls where there are less people. There are tarps overhead that the vendors have pieced together to ward off the sun. It’s suffocating, but the little air that comes in through the gaps is enough to keep them going. The stalls stretch to forever and it feels as if they’ve entered a maze.

“If one of us gets lost, we’ll meet by the clock tower,” Elliot says glancing over his shoulders. Tyrell wonders if they’ll find the exit at all.

They stop at a silk shop just because it’s too pretty to ignore. Tyrell runs his hand reverently along one of the displays and it’s cool to the touch despite the afternoon heat. It feels like the soul of the weaver has been embedded in the threads. He checks the tag and is not surprised by how expensive it is. A few years ago, if he had seen this, he’d buy it in a heartbeat just because he can.

Elliot is already looking at t-shirts in a nearby stall. Tyrell pulls out a black one from a rack. Printed on it is an album cover of a band he’s maybe familiar with.

“Hey, that’s cool,” says Elliot, sneaking up beside him.

“You like this band?” Tyrell asks.

“Yeah, I guess.” Elliot answers. “The lead singer killed himself by standing on a block of ice with a noose around his neck and he just waited until the ice melted.”

Tyrell gives him a sidelong glance. There’s a hint of a smile on Elliot’s face, and Tyrell knows he’s joking.

“That’s stupid,” is all Tyrell says with a barely suppressed chuckle.

\---

There are a thousand t-shirts to choose from but Elliot ends up buying two black ones. Of course. Tyrell almost laughs. He picks up fisherman pants for himself as an afterthought, and they begin the arduous task of heading back to the exit. Along the way, Elliot picks up spices—dried chili, galangal, kaffir leaves—like he knows what he’s doing. They buy meat, too, and vegetables they hardly know the names of.

The sun is about to set over the horizon when they climb onto the train. It’s crowded with people coming back from the market, hauling in tarpaulin bags and plastics full to the brim. Elliot helps out a woman with her stroller; Tyrell goes to haul a box smelling of dried fish for a frail-looking man.

By the time the train starts rolling, they’re both pressed against the door, shoulders touching. They watch the sunset through the gaps in the passing buildings. Elliot smells like kaffir leaves, and cinnamon, and sweat. Tyrell can see hints of both their reflections on glass. It’s been an nice day, and for a moment Tyrell forgets there is a dossier of Elliot hidden under his mattress. He forgets there ever was a Dark Army or the hack or a bullet through his wife’s head and a lost child. He thinks that maybe he can be happy here, exactly like this, smelling of spices, Elliot beside him squinting against the sun.

He’s vaguely aware of their knuckles touching and in a moment of absolute tenacity, he slips his hand into Elliot’s hand and catches two of his fingers. When he sees Elliot’s reaction reflected on glass, Tyrell knows that Elliot knows that this is far from being accidental.


	4. Chapter 4

Just when they thought it couldn’t get any hotter, it’s suddenly officially summer. It’s not just any ordinary summer either. It’s El Niño and it settles profoundly over the Pacific. They hear about it on the radio: the country experiencing drought, with water levels in the major reservoirs dropping to alarming levels. The northern provinces are hit the hardest, and agriculture is drastically affected with news of bad harvest or no harvest at all. Add those to the ongoing worldwide economic crisis that they helped bring to fruition and it’s a country catapulting into near panic. Price hikes on all things essential. The government rationing water. A border dispute and a far flung village wiped out in Sisaket. Widespread looting in Lampang. And the most heartbreaking: a mother sentenced to death for drowning her infant in the Mekong because she had nothing, absolutely nothing to give him.

Tyrell wakes up mortared to his bed, the sheets fastened to his skin. Somewhere, in another part of the building, somebody is playing a pop song that he might have heard before but isn’t quite sure. He can hear it through his open windows that he never closes now, hopeful for even just a hint of breeze.

The clock blinks 6:49 AM and Tyrell sweeps the palms of his hands over his brow. He always wakes up before 7. It’s a part of him now, just like the color of his eyes. He eases himself up and sits on the edge of the bed and listens to the outside world springing back to life. It feels natural sometimes, like he’s somehow eased into this new life. He stretches, feels his vertebrae line up.

He catches the sound of a tap running in the bathroom. Elliot must be inside. Which means he just stepped in from his night shift.

Tyrell puts an old shirt on and taps lightly at the door.

“Hey, you want breakfast?” he calls.

He hears a muffled “yes” from the inside.

“Fill up the drum after you’re done,” he says and it sounds so mundane that he lets his forehead drop to the wooden surface of the door.

“What?” comes the reply.

“Fill up the—”

“What?”

Tyrell sighs. He hears movement from inside and the sound of the tap turning off.

“What?”

“The drum, Elliot. Fill it up when you’re done,” he says.

\---

Tyrell is halfway through frying bacon and eggs when Elliot steps out of the room in his sleeping clothes, a towel slung over a shoulder, his skin mottled with red blotches possibly from scrubbing too much. Tyrell doesn’t say anything. In this heat, sweat and dirt and grime cling to you like a second skin.

“Bacon and eggs,” Elliot says, as he rounds the corner to stand beside Tyrell, smelling like papaya soap.

“Yup,” Tyrell answers. He flips a strip of bacon over. He never thought that bacon and eggs will become a luxury yet here they are, watching bacon shrink and crisp with a quiet reverence like they are watching turkey turn a golden brown in the oven.

Tyrell is also hyper aware of the fact that he and Elliot are just standing there and not touching. Something like regret flares heavily in his gut _. Let’s not_ , Elliot had whispered to him that evening after the train ride from the market, when Tyrell invaded his space as soon as they stepped into the apartment.  _Let’s not._

\---

Tyrell’s 10 AM is Mai, a quiet little girl in pigtails and glasses. She only speaks when spoken to and sits impossibly still throughout their lesson. Tyrell sighs in relief when they’re finally done. Mai disappears to her room without a word.

Jane, Mai’s older sister, on the other hand is precocious and stubborn. As soon as Mai is out of sight, she slinks to the couch beside Tyrell and props her foot up on his lap. He places a hand on her lower leg.

“I’m eighteen, you know,” she says.

“Shouldn’t you be at school then?” he asks, suddenly thirsty from an hour of giving lessons.

“School’s out for the summer.”

“Right,” he says and she lunges in unceremoniously to cover his mouth with hers. Tyrell lets her kiss him simply because it’s been way too long. Her tongue skates the inside of his mouth and she tastes like the tea they serve him, mulberry leaf. He wonders where he can get the stuff, wonders about the farmers in the fertile hills of northern Laos where Jane says the tea is from, if they’re doing okay there now that El Niño is in full swing. He wonders if Elliot will like this flavor. Wonders if it will taste different in Elliot’s mouth.

Jane stops and detaches herself from him. She covers her mouth with two fingers as if she just said a bad thing.

“What are you thinking?” she asks after a beat.

“Your father will kill us if he finds out,” he says. Jane knows he is lying. She searches his face for a moment and then she smiles, understanding.

“No. That’s not it,” she says, withdrawing her leg from Tyrell's grip. She stands up and fixes her skirt.   
  
"Lucky girl whoever she is," she winks at him and walks away.

\---

The store is half empty of merchandise when Tyrell ducks under the metal awning. The lady explains that she’s waiting for deliveries, but he doubts that it’s the truth. He’s been here a dozen times and he’s yet to see an actual customer. The lady pops open an orange soda and hands it to him. It’s cooler outside so they sit together on the raised platform of the store, facing the empty street.

“Glad to see you’re keeping up with the weather,” she says, observing Tyrell’s summer outfit. A white button-down shirt and khakis. He still refuses to go around town in fisherman pants and t-shirt even though they’re a lot more comfortable.

“Here, have some,” she hands him a bowl of what looks like banana fritters. He takes a piece and it’s heaven in his mouth.

“What do you call these?” he asks.

“Hmm…” she says, stuffing her mouth with another. “Banana fritters.”

“Yeah, I know, but what’s the local name?”

She laughs and her voice echoes in the empty street.

“I’d tell you but you’ll just forget about it.”

Fair enough. So they eat in silence, the lady occasionally fanning herself with a folded up cardboard. Tyrell likes it here, the quietness of this street, his comfortable but strange friendship with this lady he barely knows.

She’s gone to the back of the store for a brief moment. When she sits back beside Tyrell, she hands him over a package. It’s a box wrapped obsessively in bubble wrap.

“That’s for your 10 AM, Thursday. Hand it directly to the dad,” she explains. She takes out a cigarette box and brings one stick to her mouth, lights it up.

"I didn't know you smoked," Tyrell says, weighing the package in his hands. It feels solid, heavy.

"You don't know a lot of things about me," she answers, waving a puff of smoke away from Tyrell's direction. "You don't even know my name.”

He doesn't and Tyrell instantly feels guilty about it.

"Then, what's your name?" he asks, sincerely, whipping up a winning smile.

The lady laughs, doesn't answer.

"It's not your job to know me. But it's my job to know you," she says. "I know, for example, that you don't smoke that's why I didn't offer." She blows out another cloud of smoke and Tyrell wonders what the Army is using as leverage against her.

"That thing’s going kill you,” Tyrell says.

The lady shrugs. “I’m already dead,” she says. She smiles again but it doesn’t reach her eyes this time.

She gestures to the package. “If you’re curious, let's just say that you wouldn’t want to take the train with that.” Tyrell knows not to ask.

“Oh, and another letter for your ward.” Tyrell tries not to flinch at her word choice. The envelope she hands him is already open, which is no surprise.

“Thanks,” he says, tucking the package under his arm and the envelope in his back pocket.

The lady looks at him for a long time, before saying, “She’s not who she says she is, you know.”

Tyrell is not quite sure what she means.

\---

He steps inside the apartment half-dead from the heat and a shade redder. Elliot is sitting on the armchair opposite his couch, cursing under his breath and scratching at his neck. Tyrell easily slips the package in a drawer.

“What’s up?” he asks from the kitchen.

“I’m fucking itching all over,” Elliot answers.

Tyrell strides towards him.

“Stand up,” he says. And Elliot does. Tyrell spins him around and lifts his shirt up without preamble. True enough, there are insect bites covering his back. Groups of three to five bites in succession sprawling on his lower back like red constellation.

“Bedbugs,” Tyrell says. Elliot glances at him over his shoulder and Tyrell drops his shirt, steps back too suddenly for Elliot not to notice.   
  
Tyrell bends over the couch and lifts the cushions, looking for evidence that there are indeed critters. He finds bug shells dotting the piping of the couch.

“Fuck,” Elliot says under his breath.

\---

They’re both sweating profusely by the time they manage to bring the whole couch up to the roof deck of their building. The five o’clock sun is just about ready to set over the horizon.

“Well, that was a waste,” Tyrell says. They had carried the damn thing up 3 flights of stairs because Tyrell thought it was a good idea to sun the couch to try and get rid of the bedbugs. 

Tyrell pads to a corner of the space and sits down on the floor, out of breath. Elliot inspects the sides of the couch and sprays insect repellant all over it.

“I doubt that’ll work,” Tyrell says. “They burrow deep inside the fabric.”

Elliot gives up. Sighs, and sits on the floor, his back towards Tyrell.

“Do you think it’ll rain?” he asks, looking at the horizon just beyond the concrete half wall separating them from the 5 story drop to the street below.

Tyrell looks at the cloudless sky.

“I don’t think so,” he says. Elliot considers this for a moment before bolting for the stairs. He says, “Wait here,” like an afterthought so Tyrell does. He waits, throat parched, the world too still. It’s breezier here than their 3rd floor apartment, though, he notes when a small wind whistles across his neck.

He has read the letter on the bus ride home. Angela’s usual cursive on a simple stationery. It starts out like it always starts out. _Hello. How are you? I miss you._ And then news from her side of the globe. Angela and Darlene going to ballet class together. Angela reconciling with her father. The letter is charming in its specific ordinariness. 

Tyrell doesn’t even realize that he had fallen asleep when he feels something ice-cool on his cheek. Elliot is standing in front of him with two bottles of beer in his hand.

“Sorry,” he says, handing a bottle to Tyrell. “And thanks for helping,” he adds, fumbling. He sits beside Tyrell but maintains a couple of feet between them. Tyrell’s heart lurches at their distance.

“No problem,” is all Tyrell says. They settle into a comfortable silence. Tyrell remembers the lady’s warning. _She’s not who she says she is_ , referring to Angela. She had double-crossed Elliot before, working for both opposite sides of him. She told Tyrell once that she would know if she’s speaking to one or the other. The Elliot she grew up with has gentle eyes. The other doesn’t have a soul.

“You think it’s OK to leave that here?” Elliot asks, gesturing to the couch.

“Yeah,” Tyrell answers. “I don’t think anyone ever goes up here anyway.”

He looks over at Elliot as he tips the bottle to his mouth. Elliot is looking at the cloudless sky, a small smile ghosting over his lips. The Elliot sitting next to him has gentle eyes. Tyrell’s gaze travel from his chin to the sharp angle of his jaw, travel to his neck, to the slope below his ear, the hollow of his clavicle. He remembers it was on a rooftop just like this where he wrapped his hands around a woman’s neck, how he watched as she struggled underneath him, how life simply receded from her eyes. It was so simple to break her just because she was too arrogant to want him back.

He wonders if Elliot is thinking about Angela, so he asks.

Elliot looks at him confused. He shakes his head.

“I’m thinking where I will sleep later,” he answers, taking another swig at his beer.

Tyrell lets out a huff that’s more of a sigh than a laugh.

“You can sleep in my bed,” he suggests, and he’s half-expecting Elliot to squirm under his gaze, but he doesn’t.

“Yeah,” Elliot answers. “Just make sure you keep your hands to yourself.”

The last paragraph of the letter explains that Krista had died in an armed robbery at the station. It was just a random hold-up, a guy desperate for a few dollars. The police caught him the next day. He said it was his first try and that his daughter was sick. He panicked and pulled the trigger too quick.

“Sure,” Tyrell says, chuckling.

The sun is about to set and the sky is ablaze in various shades of violet. Tyrell pulls out the envelope from his back pocket and slides it across the floor.

\---

It’s still dark when Tyrell feels the bed dip and he smells the faint traces of cigarette smoke and alcohol. The clock on his bedside table reads 4 AM. He shifts and turns to his side. Elliot is lying down beside him, his outline familiar in the half-dark.

“Elliot,” Tyrell whispers.

Elliot turns to face him, his eyes catching the glow of the streetlamp outside the window. Tyrell’s breath snags in his throat. Still dazed, and not knowing if this is still him dreaming, Tyrell reaches out to cup Elliot’s cheek in his hand and finds the skin there damp. He hears him let out a noise that sounds too broken to be a sigh.

“I’m sorry,” Tyrell says quietly. His hand traces a line down Elliot’s throat and inhabits the hollow there just below his ear. He can feel Elliot’s pulse on his palm. Elliot wraps a hand around his wrist lightly and for a moment, Tyrell is a afraid he’ll push him away. He doesn’t. Elliot’s fingers brush at the inside of Tyrell’s wrist, and then settle down just above his heartbeat. They fall asleep like this.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. I can only write on weekends.

**Author's Note:**

> Edit: I guess I will keep updating this after all. This is loosely inspired by WKW's Happy Together.


End file.
